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Longtime vaccine skeptic Robert F Kennedy Jr has urged folks to get the measles jab after a lethal outbreak in Texas – having initially downplayed the speedy unfold of the infectious illness.
Writing in a Fox Information op-ed Sunday, the freshly-confirmed Division of Well being and Human Service secretary championed the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, touting its efficacy towards the lethal virus.
“Measles outbreak is name to motion for all of us,” reads the title, with the standfirst stating: “MMR vaccine is essential to avoiding doubtlessly lethal illness.” Within the article’s opening line, RFK Jr acknowledged he’s “deeply involved concerning the current measles outbreak.”
He mirrored on the times earlier than the primary measles vaccine was licensed for public use within the U.S. in 1963.
“Previous to the introduction of the (MMR) vaccine within the Sixties, just about each youngster in the USA contracted measles,” RFK Jr citing that from 1953 to 1962, there have been a mean of 530,217 confirmed circumstances and 440 deaths – a one in 1,205 circumstances fatality price.
The Kennedy scion stated that it’s the authorities’s duty to make sure that correct data is relayed about vaccine security and efficacy, and pledged to “make vaccines readily accessible for all those that need them.”
He added: “Vaccines not solely shield particular person youngsters from measles, but in addition contribute to neighborhood immunity, defending those that are unable to be vaccinated attributable to medical causes.
RFK Jr did, nevertheless, emphasize that the choice to vaccinate is “a private one.”
In keeping with the newest figures from the Texas Division of Well being and Human Providers launched Friday, 146 measles circumstances have been recognized since late January – a majority of whom look like unvaccinated.
An unvaccinated school-age youngster in Lubbock marked the primary dying from the extremely contagious virus final week and twenty different folks have been hospitalized.
After the dying Wednesday, the nation’s prime well being official appeared to downplay the scenario in Texas and described the outbreak as “commonplace.”
“There have been 4 measles outbreaks this yr on this nation. Final yr there have been 16. So it is commonplace,” he stated throughout Donald Trump’s first cupboard assembly. “Now we have measles outbreaks yearly.”
RFK Jr’s newest remarks seem to mark a U-turn from his earlier peddling of vaccine skepticism and conspiracy theories, together with his promotion of the debunked concept that vaccines trigger autism.
Alongside along with his feedback about vaccines and autism, the HHS secretary has made different historic inflammatory remarks, together with suggesting in January 2022 that Anne Frank was in a greater scenario when she hid from Nazis than Individuals have been beneath Covid-19 mandates.
He additionally baselessly claimed that Covid-19 was a “bioweapon” that targets “Caucasians and Black folks” whereas sparing Ashkenazi Jewish and Chinese language folks.
Spreading Covid-19 misinformation resulted in Meta deactivating his Instagram account in 2021.
Throughout his Senate affirmation hearings final month, he tried to wash up his earlier remarks and insisted he isn’t anti-vaccine, however “pro-safety.”
RFK Jr denied Oregon Senator Ron Wyden’s accusations that he “embraced conspiracy theories, quacks, charlatans, particularly in terms of the security and efficacy of vaccines,” and famous his personal youngsters are vaccinated.
Vaccine hesitancy was already a priority earlier than the Covid-19 pandemic and worsened in the course of the vaccination campaigns, consultants instructed the Washington Put up.
In keeping with a survey from the College of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Coverage Heart final June, practically one in 4 respondents believed that the MMR vaccine triggered autism.
The Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention has stated there isn’t a proof linking the measles vaccine and autism.
In August 2024, the findings from an Annenberg Science and Public Well being survey advised that greater than 1 / 4 of Individuals imagine that Covid-19 vaccines have triggered hundreds of deaths.
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